Iron in various forms has been used in radar absorbing material (RAM) applications because it is effective and can be obtained at relatively low cost. Unfortunately, in normal ambient environments iron rusts and looses the magnetic properties that make it effective as a radar absorber. Protective binders have been used to prevent rust, but most are not effective in salt spray environments or those environments that include temperature extremes and abrasive dust, water or ice. Therefore iron silicide alloys, FeSi and FeSi.sub.2 in powdered forms, have been produced and used as RAM because a protective silicon dioxide coating can be grown on each particle of the powder by merely heating the compound powder in air. These iron silicide powders have had great success in high temperature applications, but unfortunately their radar absorbing performance per weight and amount of iron is substantially less than those of carbonyl iron powders. Therefore there has been a need to provide a corrosion resistant, preferably iron containing material that has radar absorbing performance approaching that of carbonyl iron powders without resort to expensive ferrous aluminides.